Oddly enough, the development team worked on a similar project with a “slightly different direction,” but it was cancelled in late 2022. Gummy Bears, a MOBA-like title, is still alive but is currently in a “holding pattern” amid ongoing uncertainty within Bungie.

While it was never officially announced, reports first emerged of Gummy Bears in August 2023. At the time, Bungie described one of its incubation projects as a “team-based action game inspired by several genres in a brand-new, science-fantasy universe.” Some of those genres included platformers, MOBAs, life sims and so on “wrapped up in a lighthearted, comedic world.”

It also seems that following the remaining payouts from Sony’s acquisition, there’s an expectation that leadership will depart in Summer 2026. Bungie is thus pushing to release Marathon before that happens, which could explain the replacement of Christopher Barrett as game director with Joe Ziegler last year.

Meanwhile, Destiny 2: The Final Shape launches on June 4th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Marathon doesn’t have a release date, but rumors claim it’s been delayed to 2025.

As per a report published by The Game Post, Bungie’s unannounced multiplayer IP will be a team-based PvP experience that will feature “many” elements from the MOBA genre. Interestingly, in a recent tweet, Bungie described one of its current incubation projects as “a team-based action game inspired by several genres in a brand-new, science-fantasy universe” that “draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games, wrapped up in a lighthearted, comedic world.”

Characters will allegedly feature “colourful and cute” designs and will feature “an almost neon-like appearance”. That would align with previous job listings posted by Bungie, which have described the game as “something comedic with lighthearted and whimsical characters”.

The report also claims that the project is codenamed “Gummy Bears“. If a trademark filing from 2018 is anything to go by, the game’s final name might be Matter.

The game is allegedly “still in the early stages of development”. Earlier this year, Microsoft stated in court documents that Bungie’s Matter was expected to release sometime in 2025.

Of course, Bungie was also on the list. One document (as per IGN) saw Microsoft evaluating the company, noting, “As of 2021, [Bungie] has more than doubled its headquarters space and plans to open a new studio in Amsterdam by 2022 for ongoing support on Destiny 2 and development of a new IP, currently expected to release in 2025.”

It then noted that Matter was trademarked in 2018, leading one to believe it’s the new IP that Microsoft is referring to. After all, Marathon was announced only recently, and despite being an extraction shooter for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC, it’s part of a long-running franchise for Bungie instead of a new IP.

Of course, Bungie is no longer on the table – Sony acquired it last year for $3.6 billion. Nevertheless, the companies Microsoft wanted to purchase are intriguing, and even included Square Enix as part of the internally named “Project Phoenix.”

As spotted by The Game Post, multiple job listings published by Bungie for an unannounced multiplayer action title suggest that the game might be using Unreal Engine for its development. Job listings for contract roles in the positions of level designer and environment artist both mention “experience in Unreal Engine” under requirements.

Which game in particular the job ads might be referring to is anyone’s best guess, given that Bungie has a number of unannounced projects in development. Multiple past job ads have mentioned a new multiplayer action IP that could potentially be played from a third person perspective and feature “lighthearted and whimsical” characters. Going by a trademark filing by Bungie back in 2018, it could be called Matter.

Meanwhile, leaks have also claimed that Bungie is reviving Marathon as a PvPvE extraction shooter, while further job ads have suggested that a new competitive multiplayer game in the Destiny universe could also be in the works.

Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said back in 2019 that the developer intended to release a non-Destiny IP by 2025. Meanwhile, even though the studio is now owned by Sony, it has previously confirmed that all of its future games will continue to be multiplatform.

Remember when Bungie, developer of Destiny, signed a deal with NetEase in June for a new project? The Chinese publisher provided more than $100 million in funding for the same. Thanks to a recent trademark application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), it seems the project’s name has been outed.

“Matter” could very well be the name of the project, or maybe a working title before a final name is announced. Regardless, the application was filed a few days ago, and is listed under “computer game software” and “internet entertainment services” as part of sections 9 and 41 respectively. You can also see what appears to be the logo above.

Matter could very well be something unrelated to the NetEase deal. As it stands right now, Bungie is currently busy working on Destiny 2 content, with the Forsaken DLC having released last month, and more updates, both free and paid, planned up till Summer 2019. It could be a while before we’re close to hearing about Matter, or whatever Bungie is working on with NetEase. Nevertheless, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

A company representative simply stated that, “Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title. We have no further details to share at this time.”

Matter was showcased at E3 2012 and showed a futuristic landscape with a metal sphere travelling through. It was meant to be a case study in emotion, both in cause and effect, with the the sphere and landscape forming an active control surface which Kinect could create.

Check out said trailer below and let us know what you think. Based on that, are you disappointed that Matter was cancelled? Or is it just one of those games that wasn’t meant for the big time?

Well, that’s… something, I guess. We don’t know if these are XBLA, or if they are all Kinect enabled, but we do know there are three new IPs, of which, we know nothing about two.

There’s Ascend: New Gods, which looks to be a hack and slasher; there’s Lococycle, which is… well, I dunno. Then there’s Matter, which is ‘made for Kinect.’

Yeah. All of these are announced for 2013, and have some interesting people working on them, including Twisted Pixel, and the creator of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (the former for Matter, which looks like a weird Portal/Tron clone, and the latter for Lococycle, which is… what is it, exactly?)

The only gameplay footage we got was for Ascend. We’ll update you with it as soon as we get some.

EDIT: Here’s some gameplay footage for Ascend: New Gods!

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